Part 2
Behind the shrill headlines decrying a “bloodbath,” a “coup,” “a power grab” and other charges, President Trump continues to deliver on his promise to dismantle the deep state by implementing a full-scale government restructuring unlike anything Washington has ever seen.
Through a flow of hundreds of executive orders in the two weeks since his inauguration, Trump terminated over a thousand political appointees embedded in the government, some of them senior officials thought to be “untouchable.” [See Sidebar]
This was followed by executive actions that froze all domestic spending, and a global “Stop Work” order issued on Friday by newly appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio that shut down all foreign aid operations for a 90-day period, except for aid to Egypt and Israel.
The White House said the freezing of government spending was necessary to enable a full review of where trillions of government and tax-payer dollars are actually going, according to an article in Politico.
[A lower-court judge has paused the domestic aid freeze with a temporary injunction but the wholesale shut-down of foreign aid operations remains in play.]
The funding halt is part of a plan to execute an overhaul and a reset of federal spending, by cataloguing all government expenditures into a transparent database. That way, an agency like the newly created DOGE (Dept. of Government Efficiency), can have some hope of overseeing it.
By freezing all existing contracts, and restricting staff communications about the order, the usual “stall and delay” tactics used by political opponents to sabotage many of Trump’s policies during his first administration have been eliminated.
Until now, government spending has operated almost on autopilot with money flowing through various pipelines, often without transparency or direct oversight, critics say. Foreign governments and NGO’s (independent agencies with social or political agendas) could pretty much rely on getting paid regardless of who was in the White House.
Trump just ended that out-of-control status quo.
Secret USAID Operations Under Scrutiny
Many have long suspected that the State Department’s USAID (U.S. Agency For International Development), was a CIA front for destabilization efforts, secretly channeling billions of dollars through foreign NGOs (non-governmental organizations).
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s freeze on foreign aid is lifting the veil for the first time on who some of USAID’s recipients are—or who have been its beneficiaries until now.
“The funding freeze is rooting out hidden truths. The howls of protest from recipients are giving away the never-before-known positions where the dark money had been flowing, and the emerging truths are very disturbing,” writes prominent Florida attorney and political commentator Jeff Childers.
As one example, he cites a disclosure from Kiev Post that reveals that USAID has distributed over $30 billion dollars to Ukrainian NGOs and contractors, “a vast uncharted ocean of misspent money.
Included in the lavish USAID handouts has been the Ukrainian media. The Kiev Post article bewails the fact that although 90 percent of Ukrainian media survived the conflict with Russia thanks to U.S. “grants,” they are now faced with a devastating “funding freeze by USAID for all projects and programs.”
Even more disgruntled was Ukrainian President Zelensky who made the astonishing remark in an interview with the Associated Press last week that “he does not know” the whereabouts of the full $200 billion in U.S. military aid reportedly granted to Ukraine.
Zelensky claims that his country has received “only” around $76 billion from Washington.
“When they say that Ukraine received $200 billion during the war to support the army, etc., this is not true,” Zelensky said in the AP interview. “I don’t know where all this money is.”
Is it any wonder Trump is determined to get an accounting of all the billions of dollars flowing from the U.S. Treasury and the State Department through USAID to foreign governments and entities? If Zelensky didn’t get the $125B promised him, then who did?
“How else could we, the information-starved American people, have learned what Biden’s State Department was buying with billions of our tax dollars?” wonders Childers in an analysis of the funding freeze.
“Trump made the recipients reveal themselves,” he noted. “The truth was buried below layer upon layer of lies and official obfuscation. But Trump’s freeze on opaque federal funding ripped off the masks.”
Showdown at the U.S. Treasury: ‘Turn Over The Passwords!’
A bizarre story, reported by the Washington Post, focused on a senior official in the U.S. Treasury, David Lebryk, ironically described by the media as “non-political,” balking at complying with orders from his new boss, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Upon his inauguration, President Trump had appointed Lebryk acting Treasury secretary while Bessent was waiting to be confirmed.
The U.S. Treasury controls $6 trillion annually, distributed in more than 1.3 billion individual checks as Social Security, Medicare, salaries for federal workers, payments to government contractors, payments to grant recipients and tax refunds.
The executive order Trump signed immediately after his inauguration creating DOGE (Dept of Government Efficiency) instructed all agencies to ensure it has “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems and IT systems.”
Musk’s database engineers have been seeking access to the Treasury data, to determine exactly what the government has been buying and who Americans have been paying. This database is essentially the “mother lode” from whose voluminous branches the deep state draws its cash flow.
But the Treasury Department stubbornly declined to give DOGE any access to the payments database. Things came to a head last week, when newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ordered David Lebryk, the highest-ranking career bureaucrat at Treasury, to turn over the passwords.
Trump has vowed that his second administration would succeed where his first failed, in particular by flushing out into the open the hidden levers of power that fuel an unelected shadow government.
With this mission in mind, Bessett stood down Lebryk, insisting he surrender the “keys to the kingdom.”
“Nonpolitical’ Lebryk adamantly refused to grant his new boss access to all internal Treasury systems.
Some tense moments unfolded, during which two security agents tried to intervene on Lebryk’s side and were instantly put on leave. Finally, knowing the game was up, Lebryk wisely chose to step down, framing the move as his “retirement.”
Shrinking the Federal Workforce
Trump’s campaign to shrink the bloated U.S. government first took aim at the federal workforce. The federal government employs more than 3 million people, with the average federal employee enjoying a tenure of 12 years, according to a Newsmax article.
Most of these federal workers are undoubtedly honest, non-political, hard-working individuals. But a fifth column exists who, underneath the guise of cooperation, have been known to stall, delay, countermand and do whatever they can to subvert the president’s orders.
Trump’s executive actions have implemented new policies making it much easier to fire underperforming or insubordinate federal employees, in particular a clause that nullified the Biden administration’s late-hour regulation granting federal workers special job protection.
In addition, the order offered federal employees chafing over having to work for someone they hate (i.e. Trump) an attractive way out: eight months of paid vacation while they find a new post, working for someone they like better.
Anyone who wants to opt out must do so by February 6—the end of this week.
Federal employees received the emailed offer yesterday which also explained how the work environment will drastically change for those who choose to stick around.
Vast Majority of Federal Employees Don’t Come to Work
The most radical change is the requirement for all federal employees to “return to the office five days a week.”
Incredibly, 92% of federal employees are still working remotely, dating back to the Covid era, and some have almost never been inside their Washington offices.
“You have to go to your office and work,” Trump said of federal employees in a press conference. “Otherwise, you’re not going to have a job.”
Not only must federal workers now get dressed and come in to work, they will also have to strive for excellence, the memo makes clear, noting that the bar has been raised to “enhanced standards of conduct as we move forward.”
The OPM memo also warned of future “downsizing,” where, down the line, employees might find themselves dismissed but minus the 7-month salary package available to those who step down this week.
Mass Firing of DOJ Lawyers and FBI Agents
A similar shakeup occurred at the DOJ and FBI, as acting interim attorney general James McHenry informed a large group of DOJ lawyers late last week that they were fired, effective immediately.
He explained that the Department “does not trust these officials to assist in faithfully implementing the President’s agenda,” adding that these executive actions are part of a broader effort “to end the weaponization of government.”
All the fired lawyers worked on the team prosecuting President Trump. Other DOJ lawyers, while not fired, were transferred to less prestigious posts, effectively demoted, media reports said.
The firings, according to a Washington Post article, also included top FBI career leaders and “more than 20” directors of various FBI field offices across the country, including Miami, Las Vegas, and the DC Field Office.
Bove also requested from the FBI top management a list of all rank-and-file FBI agents and personnel who worked on the January 6th cases—a list that could include thousands.
Reporting on the shakeup, CNN cited an anonymous FBI employee who said the January 6th case was “the largest investigation ever worked by the FBI.”
“Everyone touched this case,” the employee added.
One can only imagine how much more efficient the FBI will run, once the “largest investigation ever,” which consumed “everyone,” is finally over.
‘When You Put Social Justice Over Safety, Bad Things Happen’
Last week, in the wake of the catastrophic collision of two aircraft over the Potomac River that killed everyone aboard, President Trump signed a brand-new executive order titled, “Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety.”
The directive ordered new Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and the incoming FAA Administrator to review all Biden-era decisions and orders — and to promptly fire anyone below minimum, merit-based standards.
According to media reports, a harried traffic controller was doing the job of two people at the time, directing both helicopters and airplanes. He seemed aware the two vehicles were on a collision course but for whatever reason, failed to issue instructions to the aircraft to separate.
The army Blackhawk helicopter, which was conducting a training flight, was for reasons unknown, flying outside its approved flight path along the Potomac, at a much higher altitude than normal, and far too close to the runways.
The American Airlines pilots were apparently totally focused on a last-minute change of route in landing, as they made the fatal turn toward the runway. The pilots probably never even saw the helicopter closing into their flight path.
FAA Suffered Manpower Crisis
The FAA preliminary report found tower staffing was short-staffed. It couched this admission in opaque language, saying the staffing “was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.”
A class-action lawsuit already underway has uncovered more of the harrowing truth: a manpower crisis had been plaguing the FAA even while the agency turned away qualified white applicants, in order to meet DEI goals in hiring minority applicants, even if they were less-qualified.
This was apparently the direct outcome of the agency’s 2014 decision to forego merit-based testing when hiring air traffic controllers, in favor of a “biographical statement” that scored factors like skin color and ethnic background.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach told Newsmax on Friday that he sent a letter to the Biden administration in 2021 due to concerns that it was using DEI practices to hire air traffic controllers, and that such practices endangered safety.
“When you prioritize hiring people because of their skin color instead of their skill level, you have impacts. Because those people have the ability to end your life in a second,” Kolbach said, adding that the Biden administration never responded to his letter.
In an appearance on Wake Up, America, Kolbach cited a 2023 New York Times study that said there were 300 near-misses near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, double what it was a decade ago.
The FAA’s critical staffing issues appear to have begun with its mass layoffs in 2021 of controllers who refused to take Covid vaccines, a NY Post article claims. The agency has never recovered from that egregious policy. According to the article, the FAA is currently 3,000 controllers under normal staffing levels.
“Airplane near-misses remain high as overworked, burnt-out air traffic controllers struggle to cover staffing shortages,” the article noted, adding the staggering fact that in 2023, the Department of Transportation revealed that 77% of critical air traffic control facilities were understaffed.
A New York Times reporter confirmed that near-misses on airport runways (“incursions”) had last year climbed to an all-time high, and that maxed-out air traffic controllers were falling asleep on the job and getting drunk at work.
‘They’ve Lost Our Mission of Safety’
In an appearance on CNN, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was asked whether there was any basis to President Trump’s allegation that DEI hiring practices played a role in the tragedy that unfolded in Washington, DC.
Duffy confirmed that the tragedy was totally preventable, saying “when you don‘t focus on safety and you focus on social justice or the environment, bad things happen.”
“In the [Biden]administration, they were focused not on safety, but on petty things like changing the name from “cockpit” to “flight deck” or “notice to airmen” –they wanted to change it to ‘notice to air mission.””
“They focused on EVs and ‘racist roads’ (allegations that the location of highways near black communities signifies racism), things that don‘t matter concerning safety.”
“Our mission since the start has been safety, and the FAA has lost that mission.”
*****
USAID Unmasked
USAID was created by John F. Kennedy through an executive order and later established by Congress. It’s meant to be an “independent” agency overseen by the State Department to handle disbursing billions of dollars of “humanitarian relief and economic development.”
Those terms are broad enough that “every deep state agency has coopted it as a money spigot,” notes conservative political commentator Jeff Wilders. “USAID is a tool to splash cash around the world wherever it may be needed, like funding color revolutions (mass street protests and riots), regime change operations and other State Department intrigues.”
In a pre-election appearance on the Tucker Carlson show, RFK Jr. dropped a bombshell about USAID, claiming the agency was actually a CIA front, and that it had secretly funneled $5 billion in 2014 to ignite riots in Ukraine.
According to JFK Jr., these CIA-backed riots triggered a revolt that toppled Ukraine’s neutral, democratically elected government. Just one month before the coup, said RFK, a leaked call between former State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine exposed that she had already handpicked the country’s new cabinet.
“So what they’re doing is they’re picking the new government a month before the old government is overthrown,” RFK commented.
According to an AP article, 56 senior USAID personnel and “hundreds of contractors” were placed on immediate administrative paid leave early last week, pending review. And on Feb. 1, the agency itself was shut down, its website pulled and all employees told to stay home until further notice.
The new Secretary of State Marco Rubio took over as USAID’s acting administrator.
This is not about ending the programs that USAID does, per se,” he insisted. “There are things that it does that are good, and there are things that it does that we have strong questions about.”
A NY Post article said the DOGE team worked through the weekend to audit USAID grants and other spending, with DOGE Director Elon Musk calling the agency “a viper’s nest of radical left-wing Marxists.”
The dramatic purge seems to have been kicked off by revelations of subversive anti-Trump activity inside the agency, according to a leaked USAID memo. The memo quoted acting administrator Jason Gray discovering “several actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the President’s executive orders.”
Some of those “Trump resisters” have been fired. In the light of this week’s disclosures, other careers are likely on the chopping block as well.
Terror Financing at the State Department
The Middle East Forum (MEF) has recently published a major study, “Terror Finance at the State Department and USAID.” that deeply implicates USAID for aiding terrorist groups in many of the world’s hotspots.
The report uncovers $164 million in taxpayer-funded USAID grants to Islamist organizations, “including $122 million in federal funds to groups aligned with designated terrorist networks in places like Gaza, Syria, and Afghanistan.”
For example, the study cites a 2024 report that showed USAID grant recipients working hand-in-hand with known Hamas jihadists. Many other jihadi groups have prospered thanks to unwitting U.S. taxpayer patronage, the report alleges.
“USAID officials are not guileless philanthropists,” said Sam Westrop, director of Islamist Watch and primary author of the study. “The data in ‘Terror Finance’ paints a clear picture: USAID is complicit in financing jihad.”
Left-Wing Radicals Promoting Woke Agenda Abroad
US Republicans have consistently slammed the agency’s work, claiming it squanders taxpayers’ money on worthless causes such as fostering a radical left-wing agenda abroad. A NY Post article outlined a number of woke programs on the list of USAID’S “educational initiatives” in third world countries that promote degenerate behavior in classrooms and cultural activities.
Millions more in USAID funding has been sent for relief in the Gaza Strip — even while being marked at “high risk” of falling into the hands of Hamas terrorists by the agency’s own inspector general, the NY Post reported.
The agency has also been accused of channeling billions to Chinese research labs through the EcoHealth Alliance, the Fauci-linked organization that is alleged to have funded illegal gain of function experiments in Wuhan, China.
Those dangerous experiments in a low security laboratory have been implicated in the “lab leak” widely believed to have caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
President Trump, commenting on the weekend shutdown, told reporters that USAID had “been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out.”
